— from Tony P Ghazel, OISD Board Vice Chair; WSSDA Legislative Committee Chair —
The Washington Supreme Court continues to be dissatisfied with the legislature’s continual failure to comply with the court’s order to have a complete plan to fully fund education by 2018. The court, a few days ago, imposed a $100,000 fine for every day the legislature fails to deliver a complete plan to meet its funding guidelines and timelines, as enacted in ESHB 2261/SHB 2776. The fine will be deposited in a “segregated account for the benefit of basic education.” And, the daily fine ceases if the Legislature returns to Olympia to tackle the remaining issues before the next regularly scheduled session begins in January. On a side note, while I agree with the court’s diligence, it is not clear to me how the legislature is going to set aside this money as the constitution also says that money cannot be paid out without a vote by the legislature. Also, it is not clear to me how a fine assessed by one branch of government on another, will be paid or allocated. This discussion is for another time.
Here is some background: in 2009 the legislature passed bill ESHB 2261 which is a massive education reform bill that redefines the state’s “Program of Basic Education” and the funding amounts and methods needed to fully support it. Full implementation of the bill must be completed by 2018. The second bill, passed in 2010, is SHB 2776 which updated the 2009 bill and added a new formula for the allocation of general apportionment moneys to school districts and specified the cost of such a massive bill.
At the heart of the issue here is that the McCleary family, in 2012, sued the state alleging that the state is not properly funding education and cited the state’s constitution, article 9 section 1, which clearly says that the state’s paramount duty is to amply fund the education of every child in the state of Washington. The hearing court agreed and eventually the state’s Supreme Court heard the case and issued a ruling in January 2014 that the state legislature failed on all counts. Essentially what the justices said was that the legislature failed to comply with its constitutional paramount duty. This is the only “Paramount (above all) duty” that our founders inscribed in our constitution. And, further, the legislature did not adhere to their own definition of basic education and the costs associated with its implementation.
I and many have applauded the court for their ruling and for further willing to “retain jurisdiction” over the case. The reason that they cited for retaining jurisdiction was to “foster dialogue and cooperation in reaching a goal shared by all Washingtonians.” Please also keep in mind that after the first bill was passed in 2009, the 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 legislative sessions came and passed with no considerable funding progress by the legislature compounding more than thirty years of neglect of their constitutional duty.
Fast forward to 2015 where the state legislature just completed it’s $38 Billion biennium budget. This enabled all 295 school districts in the state to adopt their 2015-2016 school year operating budgets by the end of July as mandated by law. In this budget cycle we found a realistic increase in education funding which represented a larger increase than at any time in the previous thirty years.
Unfortunately, the court did not think that this was enough. The court credited the legislature with full funding of transportation, materials, supplies and operating costs, and acknowledged “progress” toward universal full-day Kindergarten. However, it also said the $350 million invested in K-3 class size reduction, while “considerable,” left “far to go,” citing the legislature’s own Joint Task Force on Education Funding estimate of $663 million this biennium and $1.15 billion the next.
The court also commented on the need for clarity about how the state will fund the actual cost of construction for the requisite instructional space and find the 4,000 teachers needed to make all-day K and K-3 class sizes of 17 a reality across the state. Finally, the court said, on the matter of personnel costs, “The State has wholly failed to offer any plan for achieving constitutional compliance.”
As a school board director I am concerned that we still don’t have ample education funding but, thankful that the court “retained jurisdiction” and is active in the case and I also applaud the legislature for enhancing education funding last year and again in the current 2015-2016 biennium budget. After a 176-day 2015 legislative session, the longest in history, including three special sessions, it is clear that the task is huge and possibly needs enhanced revenue. So for now, I prefer that our OISD adopted budget remains intact, that when our children return back to school on September 2nd they can expect robust educational and extra-curricular programs and that we can retain all of our faculty and staff in order to offer these programs. We have employment contracts in place, classes assigned and children to teach. I would suggest that the court keep the pressure on and that the legislature, sooner than later, continue working and moving us forward in the matter of amply funding basic education. Our students and staffs can’t wait any longer.
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Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA) “update”:
www.wssda.org/Portals/
The Supreme Court’s 8/13/2015 order:
www.documentcloud.org/
Original January 2014 Supreme Court’s order:
www.courts.wa.gov/
The WA Attorney General’s response to the order Aug 2015:
www.courts.wa.gov/
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Tony…your background on this improved but still deplorable situation is much appreciated.